ES ~Eternal Sabbath~ Vol. #08

By Patricia Beard     May 15, 2008
Release Date: March 18, 2008



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Fuyumi Soryo
Translated by:Ikoi Hiroe
Adapted by:Ikoi Hiroe

What They Say
Isaac is dying - and he's determined to take as many people with him as possible. This psychotic superbeing is using mind control to unleash chaos and destruction on Tokyo. Only Shuro, his clone brother can stop him. This ultimate battle will be the end for some and a whole new beginning for others...


The Review
Fuyumi Soryo ends this story of the fallout of the failed experiment Eternal Sabbath, a search for human immortality, with the predictable, the cliche and the surprisingly inventive. However, this doesn't mean that the resolutions are any less meaningful, powerful, justified or satisfying.

This isn't the story of Shuro vs. Isaac, of good as opposed to evil. This is the story of Mine, the objective scientist who denies and distrusts what she feels, and her relationship with Shuro, whose behaviors are learned and not initiated by emotion, both searching for those things that make one a fully realized human. As a counterpoint to these two, Fuyumi Soryo presents two flawed beings, Isaac and Yuri, representing both their opposites and aspects of them that could have been. In dealing with the challenges that Isaac and Yuri represent, Mine and Shuro come closer to each other and to completing what has been missing in their lives.

Soryo expands her concept of action as one of internalized reaction to events by making the battle for humanity over Tokyo one that is small and internal. Even with such large stakes, the battle never takes on an external cataclysmic aspect. Everything is personal and the battleground is the psyche.

Those who are new to the series will be lucky enough to read this series without the agonizing wait between volumes. Those who have patiently collected upon release will find much to discover in reading this again from the beginning.